Life's Pace Or Running?
by shockin'blueeyes
Summary: After the war, George is left struggling to live in a world whose pace he no longer knows or understands.


Written for the Madam Hooch's Quidditch tryouts, with the theme running, and all the prompts.

This fic is about George, but it can adjust to any character if you avoid some names here and there.

Disclaimer: i don't own anything.

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The war changes people. It does. Sometimes it's imperceptible, buried under layers and layers of other things, but the scars are always there, and they never truly heal. Sometimes it's a good thing, because you start being more perceptive, and more willing to help, and more sympathetic to others because of your scars.

And sometimes it's bad, and other times it's bad, really bad, horribly bad, and they burn you to the core and back again, and whether it's physical or psychical, you wish you could just die.

Having been in a war, it leaves you with a sense of impending doom, and you fear a cloaked figure is going to swoop down on you if you let your guard down a second. It makes you jumpy, grumpy and extremely sulky at times, and the worst of it, or maybe the best, is that your friends can do nothing to help you get out of that state. It clings to you like a flea, like a disease that won't let go, and you drag your scars, your sorrows and your mourning to the next day, and then to the next, and the next and the next.

The slowness of the pace your life takes it's excruciating, because you have learned to live in constant running and moving, to take instant decisions and to totter at the fine line between life and death. You learn to hate the person that's causing all this; you learn to hate him with all your soul, and suddenly, BAM!

He's gone.

It's over, and you're left with tears on your face and blood on your hands, you're left with nowhere to run, and with more scars that you dare to count.

And when you finally come to terms with the current state of peace, you have to deal with the fact that you will never be at peace anymore. Your other half has died, and he won't come back. It's like jumping off a train in movement. You roll around, staggering back and forth, bruising your already mangled soul, and suddenly all is quiet, too quiet, and there's no need to continue running around like a headless chicken. And you're lost. Utterly lost. You don't know where to stand or what to grasp for, and the world moves at a much slower pace than usual. The days drag by, and everything seems to be in slow motion. Nothing happens, there are no split-second decisions to be made, and you find yourself far away from the line.

One day, you can't just take it anymore. And you take off running, just like that. You run like you've never run in your life, run until sweat covers every inch of your skin and your muscles scream in agony, you run until your legs give up and you slump to the ground, retching and struggling for breath. But somehow, when you're able to stand again and walk back to The Burrow, the world walks at your pace. It doesn't drag behind you, it walks alongside you, and it's like seeing again a long lost friend after years and years of solitude.

And from that day on, you run every chance you get. You run to the grocery store, to work, to the restaurant where you are going to take dinner with some friends…. You run everywhere, because when you run, the world goes along with you. You don't know why, but it might have something to do with the fact that Fred loved speed. He loved to go everywhere insanely fast, and because he was usually late, this was an advantage. When you mocked him about it, he always replied with elaborated sentences, such as 'The hands of time tick against us' or 'Time is as treacherous as victory'. Half of them didn't even make sense, but he said them with such conviction you could just nod and carry on running to your destination.

So it's kinda an homage to him, the running. It's your way to remember him and at the same time forget the pain. You are so exhausted at the end of the day after all of the running that you fall asleep and have no nightmares, no weeping feasts with the pillow, just sleep, peaceful, dream-filled sleep.

So maybe there isn't a war raging on anymore, and maybe there's no need to carry on running everywhere and live on constant vigilance, but you continue to do so, because you're unable to slow down and adjust to the slow pace the world now has. It is a scar, of course, one of the many you have, but it is a scar you are comfortable with. It is a singular scar; neither physical nor psychical, but a part of who you are, and not buried under layers and layers of pretends, but carried on the top, showing it to everybody who looks at you. And it has _Fred_ engraved in it.

You've got scars, so what? If you keep on running long enough, they will heal, you know it.

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Review please!


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